Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that aim is the only thing that matters, but think of it this way:
What's the difference between a Stinger and an aimbot? One kills infantry, the other kills stuff that matters.
As I have a hard bias against cheaters, I have a much stronger hate for people who abuse something that's more gamebreaking.

Countermeasures need to work again... . But at least half of my problem is lag. Heatseekers hit me roughly 45% of the time through Flares and are fired after ECM is popped about 20% of the time. If countermeasures worked, that would be something, but they don't, so I admit a personal degree of bias, derived from my hate for hackers.

...
one is an external program that's designed to give you an edge that your competitors do not have access to.

the other is an integral part of the game specifically designed to work they way it does, and your competitors have equal access to it.

----

how anyone can possibly compare heatseekers to hacks is positively mindblowing. how anyone can think that lock-ons are unfair is totally beyond me. it is totally fair, because everybody has equal access to it. now if you want to argue whether lock-ons are fun or not, then you'd have an argument. but if you want to argue on their "fairness"? totally moronic.

OHK weapon that locks on to enemies from 500m+ away and can't be deflected (because of lag) or dodged (because of map design). Seems fair.

If DICE would kindly fix countermeasures so that they'd work consistently even for players with bad internet connections, I'd see them as fair. But until ECM or Flares is fixed so was to work as advertised, I'll feel free to make an obvious serverrule out of it and ban an average of 5 offenders every 20 minutes.

Sorry, the "works as intended" argument works only if EVERYTHING works as intended. You can't just ignore a major problem and say that it's all great while ignoring the largest problem which absolutely ruins the object. "Hey, we made this great console which does everything you guys wanted, but you have to be permanently connected to the internet or else it locks out." Guess how that ended.

Emperor Nick of the Cult of DefibrillationSith Deity of Thread-Killing

Quoted from "Pheozero"

Quoted

Quoted

ViperFTW: HEY LOOK
ViperFTW: AN ALIEN LASER FISH THE SIZE OF THE SUN
ViperFTW: I WANT TO SWAT IT WITH MY COMICLY LARGE SWORD
ViperFTW: WITH
ViperFTW: THIS
ViperFTW: AS
ViperFTW: MY
ViperFTW: FUUUUCKING SOUNDTRACK DDD

Pair is disable, and if you're flying low to dodge (given that countermeasures don't work, you have to use terrain), the impact knocks you into the ground. You either don't dodge, tank the hit and get taken out on the ground by the same helicopter, or you go low to try and block the hit and die when it hits anyways.

Oh, and everyone can buy a hack. Let's be honest, with how much money the PC crowd here thinks we console players have to just throw around, a hack is surely there. Hell, it's probably easier to buy a hack than to play the game for an hour to unlock the Stinger.

Emperor Nick of the Cult of DefibrillationSith Deity of Thread-Killing

Quoted from "Pheozero"

Quoted

Quoted

ViperFTW: HEY LOOK
ViperFTW: AN ALIEN LASER FISH THE SIZE OF THE SUN
ViperFTW: I WANT TO SWAT IT WITH MY COMICLY LARGE SWORD
ViperFTW: WITH
ViperFTW: THIS
ViperFTW: AS
ViperFTW: MY
ViperFTW: FUUUUCKING SOUNDTRACK DDD

Oh, and everyone can buy a hack. Let's be honest, with how much money the PC crowd here thinks we console players have to just throw around, a hack is surely there. Hell, it's probably easier to buy a hack than to play the game for an hour to unlock the Stinger.

As someone who doesn't do PC gaming, I don't know firsthand how often people come across hackers. That said, I see a lot of ranting about hacker frequency so I don't honestly know, it sounds a lot higher than what I'd expect. My little brother complains about hackers a lot, and he plays TF2, which I imagine doesn't draw a lot of cheaters. So I dunno, maybe y'all exaggerate to us console players, but that's the impression I have.

Emperor Nick of the Cult of DefibrillationSith Deity of Thread-Killing

Quoted from "Pheozero"

Quoted

Quoted

ViperFTW: HEY LOOK
ViperFTW: AN ALIEN LASER FISH THE SIZE OF THE SUN
ViperFTW: I WANT TO SWAT IT WITH MY COMICLY LARGE SWORD
ViperFTW: WITH
ViperFTW: THIS
ViperFTW: AS
ViperFTW: MY
ViperFTW: FUUUUCKING SOUNDTRACK DDD

Quoted from "Pheozero"

Quoted

Quoted

ViperFTW: HEY LOOK
ViperFTW: AN ALIEN LASER FISH THE SIZE OF THE SUN
ViperFTW: I WANT TO SWAT IT WITH MY COMICLY LARGE SWORD
ViperFTW: WITH
ViperFTW: THIS
ViperFTW: AS
ViperFTW: MY
ViperFTW: FUUUUCKING SOUNDTRACK DDD

M3SH sums it up pretty nicely.
Also, hacking is pretty low in BF3. Punkbuster and metabans do great work keeping hackers away. I've only played MAYBE 25 games with hackers in them, in my whole BF3 career